I have posted before asking info for pain board review courses. No one replied. BTW, i am just reading review book by Raj. I dont think i could find time to go for review courses. Please let me know if you have other ideas to prepare for the test. I would also appreciate if some one else add some help for us.
feel free to PM me.

I have posted before asking info for pain board review courses. No one replied. BTW, i am just reading review book by Raj. I dont think i could find time to go for review courses. Please let me know if you have other ideas to prepare for the test. I would also appreciate if some one else add some help for us.
feel free to PM me.

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I would be biased in providing a recommendation, since I am one of the course directors for the ASIPP review course....but I think it is excellent.

The pass rate for the review course attendees is very high.

The lectures at ASIPP have a large specialty representation among the speakers and all the speakers have been asked to create test questions for their subjects. In other words, a psychologist will ask questions related to pain psych and inject their specialty bias into the questions. I have found that the ABA/ABPMR exam questions tend to reflect the bias of the exam question writer, unlike the ABPM exam (which I personally believe is more clinically relevant).

So you have to decide, if you would like the stress of taking practice exams during a labor intensive review course week, a month before the exam- Sagar and Bert Fellows prepare the statistical results for each daily exam, so you can see how you did compared to others.

I have also heard wonderful things about Nalini's course at U of Wisconsin and Ken Candido's Dannemiller courses.

I don't know anything about the Jensen or the AAPMR courses.

As for review books, you should read at least two different ones to complement each other. I never went to a review course, but I studied Raj's review text (the orange one) and Raja's text cover to cover several times....and the ABA/ABPMR pain exam was the easiest exam I have ever taken (next to the ABPM).

There are several good review texts....Raj, Benzon, Staats + Wallace, around.
I have found Dr. Smith's book on Pain Drugs to be excellent...but I would only use it as a reference, this late in the game.

The ABA pain exam is simple and easy. Some questions are poorly written. If you did a fellowship (anesthesia based) you don't need a review course. The only book I read was Pain Management: PreTest Self-Assessment and Review by Cynthia Khan. Also consider taking a quick look at Raj's multiple choice questions ( orange soft cover).

I have Raj's comprehensive pain review book which is purple colored with blue letters. I guess it is the new edition of your orange soft cover book. right?

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Yes, the purple is a newer edition....however, in the spirit of brevity (since he has published a number of extensive textbooks), he thinned out this edition. I still admire him for having the stamina to come out with another book. I still prefer the orange book, even though it is 9 years old...some things may be outdated...new pain drugs and advances in pain neurobiology....but the regional anesthetic and interventional pain sections are tops.

I dont think the orange edition was edited well cuz it has too many mistakes. I was hoping the purple edition, which i just started reading, was improved and fixed those errors, but now i see i may not have my wish. Guess ill have to compare both chapter by chapter to make sure i dont miss anything important.

i looked at multiple sources, and the test has almost nothing to do with the questions.

As far as general knowledge goes, i really liked the Dannemiller review mp3s, especially downloading it and listening to it at home, in the car, at night, during dates (well, maybe not, cause ive been married a thousand - er i mean 13 years). The Benzon book is like a summarized bible, and there is a lot of info in it. i do have the older version, however.

Abdi was okay... there were a lot of questions, but the answers were hit and miss in terms of info. Some chapters were well written (especially the one by the pain fellow, who i met once).

painexam.com is a good site, with lots of good questions. I got Jensen, listened to it a couple of times, then decided the info was too outdated and i got tired of wasting time listening to war stories.

on the other hand, as i said before, much of the questions were not "covered" or part of any of these sources. i would study to further your knowledge and to allay some fears about the exam, but i think a lot of the test is more geared towards not being completely clueless, and to try to think through each question, as opposed to, for example, a history exam.

but if i had to choose again, i would listen to dannemiller OR read Benzon, and do painexam.com, and learn as much as possible on the job.

i looked at multiple sources, and the test has almost nothing to do with the questions.

As far as general knowledge goes, i really liked the Dannemiller review mp3s, especially downloading it and listening to it at home, in the car, at night, during dates (well, maybe not, cause ive been married a thousand - er i mean 13 years). The Benzon book is like a summarized bible, and there is a lot of info in it. i do have the older version, however.

Abdi was okay... there were a lot of questions, but the answers were hit and miss in terms of info. Some chapters were well written (especially the one by the pain fellow, who i met once).

painexam.com is a good site, with lots of good questions. I got Jensen, listened to it a couple of times, then decided the info was too outdated and i got tired of wasting time listening to war stories.

on the other hand, as i said before, much of the questions were not "covered" or part of any of these sources. i would study to further your knowledge and to allay some fears about the exam, but i think a lot of the test is more geared towards not being completely clueless, and to try to think through each question, as opposed to, for example, a history exam.

but if i had to choose again, i would listen to dannemiller OR read Benzon, and do painexam.com, and learn as much as possible on the job.

painexam.com is useful, questions are difficult and I and my fellows felt disocuraged when taking it, but scoring 60-70% is a good sign. Dannemiller I thought was very detailed for the test and it is good if you have the time to review it all. I also used the Jensen Big Yeller binder for review. During our fellowship, we used both Jensen and dannemiler as study aides which helped when it was time to review. I did not go to any of their courses, previous fellows said it was not worth the money since we reviewed material during the year.

Does anyone know anything about the 5 day "10th Annual Comprehensive Pain Board Review Symposium" at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. I get flyers for this every year and was thinking of going this year. Get my learn on....

I've emailed them, specifically asking if they offer anything that can be downloaded to ipod and they don't answer. I guess I'll take my chances that I can figure out how to do it, but I sure as hell am not watching them on TV.

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